France's prime minister tears into Trump's attack on Zelenskyy as a staggering show of 'brutality'

Tuesday, 4 March 2025

French PM François Bayrou denounces the US for pressuring Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to strike a deal with Russia, saying the Oval Office scene was brutal and aimed at humiliation.

France's prime minister has torn into US President Donald Trump’s Oval Office thrashing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling it a staggering show of “brutality” that aimed to humiliate Ukraine’s leader.

The extraordinarily frank criticism from Prime Minister François Bayrou, speaking in a parliamentary debate on Ukraine, diverged from the more nuanced tone that French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted in the wake of the clash at the White House on Friday and dropped the diplomatic niceties that customarily mark French-US relations.

Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy blew up, with the president and vice president pouring criticisms on the Ukrainian leader.

“On Friday night, in the Oval Office of the White House, a staggering scene unfurled before the lenses of the entire world, marked by brutality, a desire to humiliate, with the goal of making Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fold through threats, so that he gives in to the demands of his aggressors,” Bayrou said.

“All this was summed up in one phrase before the planet’s cameras: ‘Either you find a deal with Putin or we will abandon you,’” Bayrou said, apparently referring to Trump's comments in the Oval Office.

Trump's actual words to Zelenskyy were “you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out.”

Bayrou continued during the debate in France's parliament: “For the honour of democratic responsibility, for the honour of Ukraine and, I dare say, for the honour of Europe, President Zelenskyy did not fold and I think we can show him our appreciation,” Bayrou continued.

Lawmakers got to their feet in the National Assembly chamber to applaud.

In opening the parliamentary debate, Bayrou said that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its diplomatic fallout have left Europe in grave peril.

He spoke of “an historic situation that in our eyes is the most serious, the most destabilized, the most dangerous of all those that our country and our continent have experienced since the end of World War II.”

Bayrou's grim outlook for Europe

In opening the parliamentary debate, Bayrou said that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its diplomatic fallout have left Europe in grave peril. He spoke of “an historic situation that in our eyes is the most serious, the most destabilized, the most dangerous of all those that our country and our continent have experienced since the end of World War II.”

The French prime minister said that the Oval Office scene left “two victims.'

Speaking at a briefing in London, Zelenskyy said that a future foreign contingent in Ukraine 'should include the presence of the United States of America in one way or another.'

The first, Bayrou said, was Ukraine's security.

The second was both the trans-Atlantic relationship with traditional American allies and Washington's image, he said. Bayrou said that the Oval Office scene “compromised another fundamental alliance: the one that the United States had with themselves, their history, and with a certain ideal of defending the law, of defending the weak against the forces of tyranny.”

Trump: America won’t put up with Zelenskyy’s moves much longer

Meanwhile, the US president has attacked Zelenskyy again, rounding on his comments that he thinks the end to the war with Russia is “very, very far away“.

“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump also took issue with Zelenskyy trying to offer a positive take on the US-Ukraine relationship in the aftermath of the White House meeting.

“I think our relationship (with the US) will continue, because it’s more than an occasional relationship,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Washington’s support for the past three years of war.

But Trump was only further irritated by Zelenskyy’s suggesting it will take time for the conflict to come to a close.

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US — Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia,” Trump added in his post. “What are they thinking?”

Earlier Monday, Trump's national security adviser said Zelenskyy’s posture during Friday’s Oval Office talks “put up in the air” whether he’s someone the US administration will be able to deal with going forward.

“Is he ready, personally, politically, to move his country towards an end to the fighting?” Mike Waltz said on Fox News' America’s Newsroom on Monday. “And can he and will he make the compromises necessary?”

Waltz added another layer of doubt about US support as other high-profile Trump allies have suggested that the relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy is becoming untenable.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that Zelenskyy “needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country” for Ukraine to continue pursuing a peace deal negotiated by the United States.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who has been vociferous supporter of Ukraine, said soon after the Oval Office meeting that Zelenskyy “either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change.”